My area of the US has been lucky this winter, with most of the worst weather seeming to avoid us, either sliding north or south at the last moment, or just dissipating. That is, until January arrived, and with it came winter. I’m not the type to just turn tail and head for Florida when the thermometer starts showing single digits, but I was tempted. However, when the chance to head south and ride the BentRider Trike of the Year presented itself, what else could I do, but fly off to Hampton’s Edge in Floral City, Florida and have a week on their AZUB TRIcon 26!

I’m sure that many of you have read comments from those who may have seen this trike at the recent Recumbet Cycle-Con. And, while I am the first to applaud this event, how it showcases the world of recumbents and what’s available – and soon will be – and it affords us a chance to take a test-ride on these bikes and trikes. The only problem I have with this is, a short loop on the test track may give us initial impressions, that will let us know whether or not the bike or trike is worthy of consideration, but it’s just not enough to point out the more subtle aspects, the nuances that will cause us to smile or frown, that only come from many more hours and miles of riding. Before I go any further, I would like to thank Regis and Cindy Hampton of Hampton’s Edge Trailside Bicycles for giving me this chance to more thoroughly investigate this trike. Yes, you can learn a lot from just a brief ride, and a couple of hours can tell you even more. But a week? That’s when you can honestly say that you’ve given the trike a fair chance to impress you – or not. So, how did I like the AZUB TRIcon after a week of daily rides in Florida? Read on!
When I first saw the trike, my eyes went to the rear section: the short rear fork, along with the wide hub, a small rack, and the almost-hidden shock just demands attention. The paint on this trike is very well-done, and it’s difficult not to just stand and admire the looks. But after a few minutes of adjusting it to fit me, I wanted to get out and ride this thing! And speaking of adjustments: you really will have to take a look at the AZUB website for all the details of how many aspects can be adjusted to suit you. Simply said, not just the recline nor the leg length can be modified to suit your desires. And I just had to marvel at the “teeth” used to make it very easy to get the handlebars in the right spot, every time you need to do so after folding the trike.

Not to make you wait too long for my comments about how the trike rides, but since I mentioned folding, let’s discuss that a bit. There’s a large hinge, and a beefy lever involved in that. You’ll need to remove the seat and loosen the handlebars to clear the rear wheel as it pivots forward during the fold, to lie relatively flatly between the two front wheels. It doesn’t take long to do that, and reversing the process is also very quick. But you may be thinking: just how small does it fold? I had checked the website, and saw just how small it could go, if you wanted to remove the wheels – and there is further folding that can be done, too: the “extreme folding”! – but I wanted to see just how small it would go, for the average person who wants to do it quickly and without major hassle. See, I had rented a Volkswagen Beetle for the week, and I had folded the rear seats down, and the resulting cargo space looked like it might handle the folded TRIcon, but I wasn’t sure. I got out a handy tape measure, checked the width of the opening in the rear of the bug, as well as how much room there was before hitting the seats. And I was pleasantly surprised to find out that yes, it does fit! There’s not a lot of room left over, but hey, it’s a Beetle!

OK, now we’re ready to ride. As one would expect from a trike assembled and tuned by a professional bike shop, everything felt fine at the start. The trike stayed in a straight line when I would briefly remove my hands from the grips, the brakes were smooth and powerful, and the shifting was crisp and accurate, as indexed shifting is supposed to be. After a few miles of riding, of braking and shifting just to see how it felt, I remembered that wide rear end, and how it was supposed to result in more stable handling. So, I started looking for some curves, some excuse to ride faster and faster into a turn, wanting to see if I could feel any shimmy or wobble from the back end.

You know how it is, when you start looking for a problem, start listening for a noise, you’ll find one? Well, in this case, I didn’t. I even took this trike into a parking lot and started whipping it back and forth, faster and faster, making some very sharp turns, and it really felt like the rear end was somehow pushing down onto the pavement. No wobbles, no subtle shimmies, nothing. Sure, I could have found an off-camber turn, and leaned in the wrong direction, and then I could have gotten it up onto two wheels, but riding as (semi)sensibly as I usually do, I couldn’t get the rear end to do anything annoying. That in itself was slightly annoying, because I really did want to find out something to say about it that wasn’t all positive!

Oh, before I forget: if you get this trike, and find the need to remove the rear wheel, don’t be surprised to find that you can’t locate the quick-release handle for the rear wheel: there isn’t one. Instead, there’s a nifty little hex key wrench stuck into the left side of the axle. Give it a tug and out it comes, and then you can loosen and remove that rear wheel.

So, the trike is stable – but is it comfortable? I’ve mentioned how you can adjust the seating to suit just about anyone – that definitely helps. Another thing that keeps you comfortable is that rear shock. Don’t feel bad if you don’t notice it at first – it lies almost hidden behind the seat. If you’re the kind who likes to fiddle with things, to get it “just right”, I would suggest buying a shock pump. You won’t need it often, but it’s handy to have.

And speaking of handy: one other topic that comes up among trike riders is a parking brake. I’ve seen and tried many variations on this theme, from disc and rim brakes on the rear wheel, to rubber bands to hold one of the front brake levers shut. I’m very much in favor of making sure your trike doesn’t try to roll away when you’ve parked and need to walk away from it for a bit, so I was curious as to how AZUB has dealt with this issue. At first I couldn’t see them, but if you look closely on those brake levers, there are small “nubs” that you can push into position to hold the brakes closed. They don’t rattle, they won’t slip off and get lost, and the definitely won’t let your trike go off exploring on its own!

At this point you’re probably thinking: Larry didn’t find anything he dislikes about this trike! The folding is good (and check out the “extreme folding on their website!), adjustments for comfort are many and effective, and he likes the parking brakes. But what about performance? How about the weight? And that rear rack in the photos?

Let’s deal with that rack first. You can get a larger one from AZUB, but this one came with a smaller rack. The rack that was on the trike wouldn’t hold the panniers I brought with me (it will work with the smaller, “front” bags), but I was ready with my Smoky Mountain Saddlebags! And as for weight, I didn’t have a scale to weigh the trike with my stuff on it, but it felt somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds. Not a lightweight, but I wasn’t expecting it to be, what with that beefy rear end. I wasn’t disappointed in the performance at all, especially given its stability in turns.

The bottom line is this: AZUB has built a very nice trike, one that handles well and performs even better than I expected. It folds small enough – and even more so – to get into some tight spaces. It was chosen as the BentRider Trike of the Year, and I saw no reason to call for a recount. If you get a chance to ride it, do so. You may just find yourself going home with a recumbent tricycle from the Czech Republic!